tennis, life and a few things in between

NJ Devils defenceman Sheldon Souray wrote a short and sweet memoir, titled The Wannabe. At the end, he thanked a few people that inculded

Ken Daneyko: What kind of guy gets called into the GM’s office and is told he’s being sent to down to the minors and replies, “No … No, I’m not.” Then goes out for practice and convinces the brass to send somebody else down instead. You’re a legend, King.

Souray probably should have added that Daneyko had won 3 Stanley Cups with the Devils. From what Souray has described here, Ken was bold, which reminded me of a tennis outing about ten years ago.

I was playing doubles with three dads. My partner was from China. There was two courts in our section, without partition. The two guys on the other court didn’t play well. Their ball was flying all over the place.

Tennis etiquette has it, if your ball rolled onto next court, you wait till their point is over before you go to retrieve. Better yet, we or I always return the ball at first opportunity.

So the first time one of the two came onto our court to retrieve their ball, none of the dads said anything, even we returned their ball promptly.

Next, one of them got onto our side of the court. Another tennis etiquette is getting on to other’s court is rude, short of invading. Then next trip he wade into our court was deep into the middle of the court, behind the baseline, that I almost collided with him.

I lost my temper. First of all, one of the boys should have warned them that it’s a no no. But since they said nothing, the two felt they had granted a free pass. Secondly, I felt my safety was in danger. So I creamed, “get the *&^$$ out of my court!”

The courts stood a still for a second. The two said, “this isn’t a Wimbledon, relax.”

“Relax? To hell with you. You stay out of my court.”

To my surprise, my two Chinese opponents apologized to them, right in front of me. That didn’t sit well with me. Buddy, they were shaving you, I stood up for you, was this the way you replay me?

Chinamen, in some quarters has the rather slight reputation due to their meek and timid. The two certainly took that and waded into our court again. This time, my partner walked up to him and said, “Stay away from our court.”

Thanks partner! You couldn’t imagine how grateful I was, for the support. They were chest to chest. My partner stared down at him. His partner came over and pulled him away.

When we left, our partner didn’t forget to bow slightly to the pair as we passed by their court.

I never played with this 龟公 or eunuch 太监 again, -:)

Maybe I was over sensitive but I’ve ran into the same situation a couple of times. Once a none Chinese neighbor won’t return our new ball. And my male Chinese partner and opponents didn’t have the guts to ask for our ball back. It’s incredible and unbelievable. Come on guys, stand up.